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Firmware and Overclocking
The X570 Aorus Master’s firmware defaults to its Advanced Mode interface, where its Tweaker menu has enough controls to set most overclocks. We reached a mere 4.175 GHz on our Ryzen 7 3700X, but the board pushed two of our DDR4-2933 modules to a stellar DDR4-4066. The shown DRAM voltage setting of 1.32V produced an actual reading of 1.348V at the slot, and the next higher setting (1.33V) would have violated the 1.355V limit we’re using to keep companies from cheating in that portion of our overclocking evaluation.
The Advanced Memory Settings sub-menu provides SPD information and a separate timings sub-menu, where we set 20-21-21-21-42 latency to give our modules enough room to hopefully reach DDR4-4200. The achieved DDR4-4066 is a good effort towards that goal.
Avoiding the dreaded “vdroop” phenomena under high software loads required setting the board’s VCore Loadline Calibration to Turbo mode, which pushed core voltage upward by around 5mV under load. Alternatively, the next lower setting allowed it to drop by around 15mV under load.
All seven fans can be manually adjusted or set to an automatic mode, and users can manually select between voltage- and PWM-based control for all seven headers or use auto mode to allow the board to detect whether the PWM connection is present. Included software allows the system to create a new fan profile based on noise rather than RPM.
Users who might be confused by the advanced GUI can switch to Easy Mode by tapping the prompt at the bottom of Advanced mode, or by using the keyboard’s F2 key.
Overclocking
We’ve retained the hardware from our first X570 motherboard review to compare the X570 Aorus Master, adding data from our upcoming MSI MEG X570 ACE review to expand the charts.
| Frequency and Voltage settings | Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master | ASRock X570 Taichi | MSI MEG X570 ACE | Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi |
| BIOS | F5e (07/04/2019) | P1.20 (06/20/2019) | 1.20 (06/28/2019) | F40 (05/16/2019) |
| Reference Clock | 100-300 MHz (10kHz) | 100-200 MHz (1 MHz) | 80-200 MHz (5 kHz) | 100-300 MHz (10kHz) |
| CPU Multiplier | 8.00-63.75x (0.25x) | 22-63x (0.25x) | 8.00-63.75x (0.25x) | 8.00-63.75x (0.25x) |
| DRAM Data Rates | 1333-2666/5000/6000 (267/66/100 MHz) | 1866-2400/5000/6000 (267/66/100 MHz) | 1600-2666/5000/6000 (266/66.7/100 MHz) | 1333-5000 (66.67 MHz) |
| CPU Voltage | 0.75-1.80V (6.25mV) | 0.90-1.55V (6.25 mV) | 0.90-2.00V (12.5 mV) | 1.00-1.70V (6.25mV) |
| CPU SOC | 0.75-1.80V (6.25 mV) | 0.90-1.60V (5 mV) | 0.90-1.55V (12.5 mV) | 0.80-1.70V (6.25mV) |
| VDDP | Offset -0.2 to +0.70V (20 mV) | 0.80-1.30V (10mV) | - | Offset -0.2 to +0.70V (20 mV) |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.00-2.00V (10 mV) | 1.00-1.80V (6 mV) | 0.80-2.00V (10 mV) | 1.10-2.00V (10 mV) |
| DDR VTT | 0.44-0.98V (5 mV) | Offset -600 to 600 mV (10mV) | 0.120-1.235V (5 mV) | 0.83-1.66V (8.33 mV) |
| Chipset 1.05V | 0.80-1.50V (20 mV) | 1.00-1.20V (5 mV) | 0.85-1.50V (10 mV) | 1.05-1.41V (20 mV) |
| CAS Latency | 8-33 Cycles | 8-33 Cycles | 8-33 Cycles | 8-33 Cycles |
| tRCDRD/RDCWR | 8-27 Cycles | 8-27 Cycles | 8-27 Cycles | 8-27 Cycles |
| tRP | 8-27 Cycles | 8-27 Cycles | 8-27 Cycles | 8-27 Cycles |
| tRAS | 21-58 Cycles | 21-58 Cycles | 21-58 Cycles | 21-58 Cycles |
The X570 Aorus Master ties the X570 Taichi in CPU overclocking, but we’re noticing that each newer review brings a new overclocking high. In this case, it’s Gigabyte’s memory overclock beating ASRock’s. And even though the X570 ACE shows an older firmware than Gigabyte, that update came to us later.
In fact, the inclusion of the X570 ACE data put a damper on the Aorus Master’s overclocking achievements, just as the Aorus Master’s results prevented a Taichi victory. But what does all the memory overclocking mean for performance?
Even though the MEG X570 ACE had by far the fastest DRAM data rates, the most effective use of overclocking goes to the X570 Taichi. The X570 Aorus Master hit a middling frequency, but only managed to turn that into the same performance level as the lower-clocking Taichi.
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